BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER
A local businessman who began flying a 17-foot-long black and yellow blimp above his eastside business last Saturday, has received threatening phone calls from residents who say the blimp interferes with their ocean views.
Travis Twining, owner of Asset Equipment Sales & Rentals at 208 North Calle Cesar Chavez, said the blimp, which does not bear his business name or phone number, is for sale and he’s merely trying to display inventory.
But on Saturday at 6:15 p.m., after the blimp had been flying for just over six hours, a phone message from a resident named Adrian Butash made Twining stop in his tracks.
Butash’s message said: “Hey guys I want you to know that balloon is a f**king nightmare on the horizon. You’re sucking off all of the entire beautify scenery and it’s coming to a roaring halt. That balloon is going to come down. We’re going to marshal the go*damned city against you. This citizens are pissed off, I’m with a group of ten people and be advised.”
Twining said he’s alright with people not liking his blimp, but hoped they would handle it in a more civil manner.
“My initial reaction was how inconsiderate people could be,” Twining said. “I would hope they would come down here and talk to me in a rational way rather than calling us using profanity and making threats.”
When the Daily Sound contacted Butash yesterday, he insisted that he plans to work out his differences with Twining, but hung up before he could comment on his message.
“I’m meeting with the guy next week and we’ve agreed to settle our differences,” Butash said.
Twining said he spoke with Butash on the phone and invited him to his store, but a date hasn’t been set.
Twining said the conversation was laced with profanity by Butash, who said he planned to picket in front of the business.
In a town known for stringent sign and other visual guidelines for businesses and private residences, Twining, 31, said he realized the blimp would be problematic when he ordered it. Instead of printing his logo and phone number on the blimp, he put it up for sale, a technicality that he contends gives him the right to fly it until it’s sold.
“I’m a young guy starting a new business and trying to support my family and I think I have every right to display my inventory,” Twining said.
The blimp says, “Heavy Equipment Sales and Rental.”
Twining said he has not been contacted by the city about the blimp.
During their phone conversation, Twining said Butash claimed to have more effective ideas for marketing.
Twining said if Butash was willing to meet and present his ideas, he would take the blimp down.
Until then, Twining said he hopes the phone calls, which have continued arriving from people other than Butash, stop.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Blimp sparks threats
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1 comment:
When is an advertising sign still a sign? As depicted in the front page big photo of the Daily Sound newspaper today (19Sep.2007), a big, 17-ft. balloon emblazoned with the big text "Heavy Equipment Sales and Rental" has been flying since last Saturday at least 100 ft. above a local business that sells and rents heavy construction equipment. In the article, the business owner says that the blimpy balloon is not a sign, but merely a product for sale by a business that sells and rents heavy equipment.
The news article also noted that a few people from the Riviera area have been flaming the business owner with nasty phone calls about this balloon ruining their viewshed. They also told the equipment sales and rental business that they "were going to marshal the [explicative] city against you."
The Santa Barbara City Sign Committee is known for being strict, but slow, to order enforcements of the sign ordinance, which exists as one reason why Santa Barbara is Santa Barbara and not Oxnard or Bakersfield.
This amateur news writer had to investigate and called the top authority at the City of Santa Barbara, a municipality that takes its sign ordinance seriously.
Mayor Marty Blum took my call. She had been busy in the morning and had not seen the Daily Sound photo and article just yet. "That's a sign; we don't allow that," she quickly concluded and told me upon seeing the newspaper photo from a stack of Sounds that always are available in the City Council office suite.
Mayor Blum then said she would pass along the newspaper to Jim Armstrong, the City Administrator, to push along the sign enforcement process. Somehow I think Armstrong and half the Community Development Department staff already were fully aware of the situation.
According to my freeway drive-by observation while my Double Rainbow ice cream from Trader Joe's was melting, that balloon sign was still tethered at least 100 ft. above the ground as of early afternoon Wednesday.
COMMENTARY:
Santa Barbara needs all the homegrown small business it can get, lest Starbucks and Old Navy take over completely and our tourist-based economy becomes as special as a visit to Newport Beach or Santa Monica. Heavy equipment sales and rental is a needed local business, just like Blenders or Big Dogs; however, breaking the rules with an obnoxious sign for a perceived advertising advantage only invites chaos and aesthetic anarchy. Santa Barbara is Santa Barbara because we have standards and enforce them. The City needs to enforce this one, and promptly. Besides, is not any advertising sign simply another product for sale at any business if the offer price is high enough?
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